Rennes-le-Château (Rènnas le Castèlh). Davinci's Code Secret

Rennes-le-Château (Rènnas le Castèlh in Occitan language), is located in Languedoc, France an unspoiled area of southern France. There are many mysteries surrounding Rennes Le Chateau that link with the Holy Grail, the Ark of Noah, the Ark of the Covenant and the treasures of the Temple of Solomon. These mysteries have baffled researchers for hundreds of years.

The modern reputation of Rennes-le-Château rises from rumors concerning the local priest in the late nineteenth century, Berenger Saunière, who was alleged to have mysteriously acquired and spent large sums of money. He was even said to have visited several heads of state, though there is no evidence for this whatsoever.

These rumors were given wide local circulation in the 1950s by Noel Corbu, a local man who had opened a restaurant in Saunière's former estate. He probably hoped to increase his business. They moved from local to national importance when they were incorporated by Pierre Plantard into his mythology of the Priory of Sion, which influenced the authors of the popular 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

From this point on Rennes-le-Château became the center of conspiracy theories claiming that Saunière uncovered hidden treasure and/or secrets about the history of the Church that threatened the foundations of Catholicism. Since the mid-1950s, the area has become the focus of increasingly sensational claims involving the Knights Templar, the Priory of Sion, the Rex Deus, the Holy Grail, the treasures of the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant, ley lines, geometric alignments, and others.